Spiritual Mindset

The sermon I want to give today is actually something I gave two and a half years ago, when I first came here, at the regional prom at Sabah's. It was for the young people there, taking a very complex subject and trying to break it down into understandable information. But actually, this was the first part of a two-part presentation I do at the Feast of Tabernacles. We had the continuing education classes at the Feast of Tabernacles. There's a two-part presentation I give there at the Feast sometimes.

So I thought, well, I know there's a few young people here that would have seen this first part before, but I wanted to give both parts together, not just for young people, but for all of us. When I do the continuing education class, there's people there from the ages of 15 to 75. It's for everybody. They help us take some very complex ideas and bring them down at the end into some very simple things we can do. It actually gets very simple towards the end.

So it's like I said, it's a complexity. If you're a young person, it's important because it helps you be able to think about how you make decisions. But that applies to all of us, no matter what age we are. How do we make our decisions?

Why do we make our decisions? And how those things affect our lives. What I want you to do to begin with is imagine for a moment that you are planning what you're going to do tomorrow. Now think about that. What are you going to do tomorrow? Now, some of you are excited. Some of you are like, oh no. I think what I'm going to do tomorrow, I have to get up, I have to go, we do the Women's Proverbs 31 class tomorrow morning, we get done at noon, I have to get back home fairly quickly because then I have to go and have a counseling with someone I have to go do.

So it's a big eight-hour day tomorrow. I've got to make sure I'm on time. But I'm overstressed by that because I'm looking forward to doing what I'm going to do. If tomorrow was a day of paperwork, I'd be like, I hate tomorrow. And you build a mental vision of what tomorrow is going to be like. Now think about if you hate your job. Some of you hate your job. Think about what it's like to get up in the morning and go to work. You want to hit the snooze, you don't want to go to work, you're just nervous, you hate it, you think about all the bad things going to happen.

Now think if you have that same job and it's a day off and you're going to go do something fun. You wake up an hour early. You don't hit the snooze, you have all kinds of energy, you feel great. What we do mentally, how we view life mentally determines an awful lot about our energy levels and on our moods at the same time.

This is what we call our vision. We all have a vision of what tomorrow is going to be like. Some people sort of live in the moment all the time. They don't think much about tomorrow. That's what's so great about being a 10-year-old boy. You know what's wonderful about being a 10-year-old boy? You just live in the moment. You don't think about anything else but what you're doing at that moment. And that's why 10-year-old boys don't have a lot of worries. 10-year-old girls do, but 10-year-old boys don't because they just live in the moment for the most part, most of them.

But of course that's not how you live life. As you get older, you always think about the future. You always have a vision of what it's going to be like. What is your vision of your life? How do you picture what your life is going to be like a year from now or five years from now? Ten years from now. I don't have much of a vision of what my life is going to be like 20 years from now because if I'm alive, I'm 82 and I don't want to think about it.

But we do have visions of what we want to accomplish. I'm a list person. I have lists of things. Still, I make lists all the time of what I want to do in the next year, the next five years. It goes clear up to about age 78, my list right now. And it'll probably start adding on to that. I'm going to live to be 180. If I asked you, a younger person, what your vision of life is, it'll be something like, I want to have a good career, I want to have a good marriage, I want to go to college.

But that's actually not a very well-defined vision. That's just some vague ideas. And even in the camp video, a lot of times when we ask young people, what is it your vision of your future, of your next five years of life, usually it's very vague. Well, I want to go to college. What college? I don't know. What do you want to do? I don't know. I do want to get married. Okay. What's your vision of that? So our visions, how do we translate visions into reality?

Now, I'm not going to talk about what you should do to create a vision of your life. What I'm going to talk about is God's vision for your life. God actually has a vision for you. And I don't mean, you know, we think of God in these big sets. God has a vision for all of us, all of humanity, right?

But understand, God has a vision, what he wants your life to look like. And when I say you, I mean you personally, every one of us. Now, a lot of times our lives at any given moment don't look a lot like what God wants it to look like, but he has a long-term plan of what he wants your life to look like, what he wants it to be at the end. And he has this vision. And he wants us to buy into his vision for our lives. It's hard to imagine that the creator of the universe says you by name and says, look, Bob, I have a vision for you.

I have a plan for you. Do you want to participate? Do you want to participate? Do you want to be part of what I want for you? I know of a man who had a vision of what God wanted in his life. And it was well-defined. And he knew, I say young, he was a teenager, older teenager at the time. And he knew what God wanted in his life.

He knew that in a very soon he was going to get married. He came from a fairly wealthy family and he was going to be a wealthy person. He also knew that God was in his life and God had a plan for him. And he saw that plan. He believed in that plan. But before the age of 20, there were family problems.

He had people in his own family turn against him. He lost his wealth. And he ended up being convicted of a crime he didn't commit and ended up in jail. Then you'd say, wow, God's plan failed. Yet this man had a different viewpoint. And we're going to go back and talk about his life in just a minute.

What is God's plan for your life? This is all of us. Mark 10. Once again, we're starting with something very grand here. God's vision for your life. But it's going to get very specific as we go on. And especially when we get into this afternoon with the Bible study. We're going to talk about how to break the shackles that hold your life back from having God fulfill his plan in your life. Mark 10, verse 29.

And in the age to come, eternal life. Well, that's quite a vision, isn't it? Now, it's a little vague, but it's huge. Now, we have to believe that there is a plan for us. But I want you to understand something about this plan. I want you to understand. We look at this and say, oh, good, God's going to give me...if I lose a girlfriend for God, and he's going to give you 100 girlfriends, you want a curse. You have 100 girlfriends. You see what I mean? So how do we look at this? And of course, he's using a principle. He said, whatever you give up, I will reward you more than you can imagine. We look at how you're going to get rewarded more than I can imagine. And we forget it's in the context of what you give up. God's plan requires us to give up something. God's plan for your life requires you to give up something. And he says, because of that, I will give you blessings in this life, and I'll give you eternal life, which is a whole lot better than this.

And we forget it's the giving up something that's part of this plan. There's a price to be paid in all of our lives to have God's vision for your life fulfilled. What he wants us to believe, and this is where our faith must be, is that what he gives us in the end will make all of this seem insignificant. Whatever price we pay will be insignificant to what we receive at the end.

You say, good, this is what I want. I want God's plan for me. I don't know exactly what it is, and I want to follow his plan. Now let me say something about God's plan here.

This vision he has for your life doesn't mean he's going to make all your decisions for you. We're going to make some bad decisions along the way.

And he's not going to plan out every specific part of your life, and there's a reason for that.

All the time I have people come to me, especially young people, and say, what is it I'm supposed to do in my life? What is my career supposed to be? What career does God want me to have? I've been praying for God to show me the career he wants me to have. And my answer is God gave you talents and abilities and a personality, and he says, son, go see what you can do.

Go find out what you can do. Now there's, you know, the moment he says that, there's some failure involved in it. I want you to plan out every step. And God says, no, you know, go live life. Find out what you can do with what I gave you. We hold back, and we hold back.

But the plan of our lives, morally, spiritually, how we live in our relationship with him and others, this is his plan. That's his bigger plan. That's what he has worked out if we will submit to him. The problem is you say, okay, I'm going to follow God's plan. I'm going to do what he wants.

And nothing seems to work out.

You do what's right. You study. You work hard, and you can't get into the college you want to get into. Or suddenly you're blindsided. You know, your whole life's doing well. And the first time, I don't care whether you're 18 or 28 or 38, but the first time, someone that's very close to you dies. It's a shock. How can this happen in my life? I can remember my daughter when she was in college, my oldest daughter, she worked two jobs and had a full college load because she was going to pay her own way through college. And she was just pushing herself and pushing herself and pushing herself. And she got sick. And I'll never forget sitting on the couch, and Kelly's not the type of person that cries much. She's sitting on the couch, and she's just crying. And she lays her head on my shoulder, and she says, Dad, it wasn't supposed to work out this way. And I said, Kelly, nobody could work themselves the way you did. You're going to make yourself sick. We could tell you that, but were you going to listen? Well, no. I could do this. No, there are certain physical limitations you have. But that's okay. We'll get you through this. You'll work through this. She did. No. But she was sick for a while because she literally worked herself into sickness. It wasn't supposed to work out this way. We all feel that way. There's always some points in our lines where we say, Oh God, this can't be part of the plan. This can't be part of the plan. This isn't the way it's supposed to work out. I'm not supposed to get sick. I'm not supposed to, you know, wake up one day and find out that I have diabetes. I'm not supposed to work out this way.

And yet it does sometimes. And we can begin to lose God's vision. And that's why I want to talk about God's vision for you. But, you know, I can't convince you of God's vision and that you should stay locked into it unless something else you have something else. And it is called a mindset. Okay, what is a mindset? Because here's the problem when we have this vision of what God wants. Life happens to us. And sometimes it's not good. And sometimes it is good. But there's a whole lot of things that happen in our lives that aren't the way we planned. I've seen people, you know, reach 70 years old and they're bitter because they look back at life and say, nothing worked out the way I planned. And it must not be the way God planned because I just I hate life. And I've seen people hate life because it didn't work out the way they wanted.

To keep God's vision, you have to have what is called a mindset. Now, what do I mean by mindset? A mindset is a word that basically means you take your vision of what you want life to be, but it's a collection of your attitudes and your beliefs and your assumptions about life. And to some point, your mindset is the way you think. We're going to talk today about how it's a way you choose to think. How you choose to think. Because you and I don't have a lot of control over a lot of things in life. We do have a choice about what we think. That's not... that's most of the rest of life. We don't have a lot of choice. It's outside of our control. Now, mindsets are usually defined as opposites. And you hear people talk about this all the time. People have a positive mindset or a negative mindset. You know, some employers, you'll go in and they'll have you take a test. And sometimes they're looking at where you are on these scales of mindsets. Now, let's face it, everybody's on the scale someplace. I have met some people that seem to be a negative 100% of the time, but they're terrible to be around. Can't figure out why they don't have any friends, right? And someone who's positive 100% of the time, after a while it's like, you gotta be kidding!

Nobody can be that happy, right? And all of us are somewhere on that scale between the positive and the negative mindset. Businesses will test people to see if they have a what they call a fixed or growth mindset, or an entrepreneurial or a employee mindset. Some businesses don't like hiring people that have an entrepreneurial mindset, because they won't do anything they're told because they always have a better way to do it. Because they're just driven that way.

There is a responsibility mindset and a victim mindset. Now you think about this, if you are more on a responsibility mindset of life, you have a totally different approach to life. If you see life as a victim, you see life totally different. Totally different. So this is what we mean by mindset. Here's our problem, folks. Every one of us have to, I don't care what age you are, how long you've been in the church, we all have to face this. And at some point in your life, you face it and you begin to turn to God, is that we all have a flawed vision of life, and we all have a flawed mindset. All of us.

Let me explain how vision and mindset work together. A young man has the vision of a perfect wife. His vision of the perfect wife, she's absolutely beautiful and is beautiful 24 hours a day, no matter what. Looks beautiful constantly. She is totally submissive. She adores him all the time. She loves basketball and playing video games. She caters to all of his needs and desires.

And she lets him control all of the money. That's his vision.

Even by looking at this man's vision, you can understand his mindset.

His attitude and thinking towards women is that they will meet all of his expectations. He is happy to work a dead end job. He spends all his spare time playing video games and basketball with his friends.

She is to never disagree with anything he says. That's his attitude. His vision and attitude are quite consistent. But I would like to ask here, I usually don't ask for a show of hands, how many of you women would want your daughters or granddaughters, or how many of you women would want to marry a man like that? Go ahead, raise your hand. Anybody? Guys, look around.

Of course not.

And if you saw someone dating a guy like that, you would run and, you know, a number of your women would run and say, get away from him, you know. And of course, what do girls usually say? I can change him.

I can change him. Of course, we can't or you can't. We're just sort of set in stone. No, you can't change us over time. But it takes a long time. It takes a long time. My wife has changed me a lot. But we've been married for almost 40 years. And there's something she still would like to change, and they're just not changing.

So, you know, I have to say this young man's vision and mindset are consistent. But it's flawed, as you can see. Our vision of our future many times is forced on us by other people's vision of us.

What other people think we should do or achieve or be. Our mindsets are established by misinformation, by our unreliable emotions. Many times our mindsets are just unreliable emotions, which is a very bad place to be in. And actually self-destructive beliefs. It's amazing how self-destructive we can be as human beings. Changing your vision or mindset to what God wants you to be is hard work. In fact, as human beings, there's no change we can make. Even a positive change. A positive change causes stress.

Any kind of change for human beings, unless you're sort of an adrenaline junkie, you know, for most of us, any kind of change causes, even if it's positive and we like it, there's a stress to us.

You know, you ever take the stress test and one of the big stresses in life is going on vacation?

Now, that's not a negative thing, and yet it does cause stress.

I talked about the young man a little bit ago, who his vision was based on what God wanted him to do. And it was. He had a vision. And how he ended up abandoned by much of his family, and he ended up being convicted of a crime he did not commit and put in jail. And his entire vision of his life was gone. Who am I talking about?

Who? Joseph.

Genesis 37.

Here's a man who lost his entire young adulthood. He lost his entire young adulthood. Genesis 37.

All the years that he was supposed to get married, take his place in his tribe, which was a wealthy tribe, all the years he was supposed to have God fulfill this dream. Now he actually received a vision from God. Most of it, you know, I don't know of anybody who's actually received a vision, literally. But what we do is have this book, and this book tells us God's vision, right? I'm going to give you a good life now, in spite of all the bad things that happened to you, and I'm going to give you eternal life. And whatever you give up for me, God says, I'll give you back a hundred times. Whatever you give up for me, I'll give you back a hundred times.

Here's what Joseph experienced.

We know that his brothers hated him because he was favored by his dad. Verse 5. Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. So he said to them, Please hear this dream, which I have dreamed. There we were, biting sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf rose up and stood upright, and indeed your sheaf stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf. Now, you know, look, my bundle of wheat, my bundle of wheat stood up, and all yours bowed down to me. Now, they gotta think, first of all, probably, he's nuts. But the second thing is, you little squirt, I mean, he's the youngest one, you punk, you think we're gonna bow down to you? He's excited. I've got a vision. I think it's from God.

And this is what God has for my life.

You can imagine the brothers in their 30s, the oldest ones. Oh, the kid.

And his brother said to him, shall we indeed reign over us? Shall you indeed reign over us, or shall you indeed have dominion over us? So they hated him even more, his dreams and his words. He dreamed another dream, and went and told his mother and his father, and his dad said, you know, if that dream's from God, what he's telling you is that I'm gonna bow down to you. You think I and your mother are gonna bow down to you? No! But then it says that his father kept it to himself like, what if the boy's right? What if this really is from God?

But you can see the hatred. But Joseph believed that was God's vision for him.

And his mindset was such that he survived all the things that happened.

See, of all the things that happened to us in life, it's not what happened to us that determines the person we are at the end. It's how we deal with the things that happened to us. And that's so hard.

It's how we deal with the things that happened, good things and the bad things.

I've seen people have so much good things happened in their life that ruins them. That's hard to believe, but I wish, you know, we all probably know somebody and so much good things happened to them, they gave up on God. It's how we deal with what happens in life. Because you and I live in a very flawed world.

Why?

You know, we talked about these mindsets as being the opposites of two extremes.

Like I said, businesses use tests a lot of time to try to figure out people's mindsets.

You know, the Bible actually talks about two mindsets. It talks about two mindsets. And they are opposites.

So let's look here, I have a slide up here, about what is a mindset.

Let's start up here at this quadrant up here.

And I, once again, I'm not going to pretend here to try to explain how the brain works. I'm not a doctor. But, in fact, I just, Chelsea just gave me a podcast that just talked about this a little bit.

The understanding of how the brain works has changed psychology. Most of what was taught in psychology 25 years ago has been thrown out by people who realized it's not how the brain works.

How the brain works actually supports what the Bible says. But basically our mindset is a mixture of our emotions, our motivations, our thoughts and actions. Well, that makes sense, right? Okay, that's our mindset. It also is the source of knowledge and authority.

If I believe the Quran is my knowledge, the center of my knowledge and authority, my mindset is going to be totally different than someone who is a secular humanist who doesn't believe there is any spiritual authority, right? Or a Christian who believes the Bible is my authority.

When you talk to somebody, it doesn't take you long to begin to figure out what they think is the source of knowledge and authority. It is then your value systems and your decision-making process. Why do I make the decisions I do? How do I make them? What is my value system? And you know, this is the big thing, value system, because everybody talks about value system today. You know, a politician will say, well, I support traditional family values. Therefore, I think that gay marriage is wrong. Then you'll get someone who says, I support family values, and that's why I support gay marriage, because they create a family. And both sides will be claiming values. Your value is what you value.

If I offered you a $50 gold piece, or a nickel, everybody here would value the $50 gold piece more. What you value is how you're going to make your decisions. And then we have relationships over here.

So this, you know, you start here and move here. This all creates our mindset. Let's go to Romans 8 verse 6.

Romans chapter 8. Because this is the passage where Paul talks about two different mindsets.

So as far as Christianity goes, all the other mindsets that employers are worried about, or psychologists are worried about, you know, God says, look, we're all a mixture of those things. Those are the things you're supposed to use in your life, your personality, your talents, your traits. But this mindset is the only one that's truly important.

Romans 8 verse 6.

For to be cardily minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. We have two mindsets.

Carnal, which means fleshly, and we have spiritual.

And every one of us are on this continuum someplace between the two.

And are we moving towards being spiritually minded?

Are we moving towards being spiritually minded?

Because the more carnally minded we are, the more certain characteristics will be played out in our lives. The more spiritually minded we are, a different set of characteristics will actually be played out in our lives.

Because it will affect all these things that are tied up in our mindset. So let's look at the carnal mindset. If we can have the next slide. Oh, let's see. Forgot to turn this on.

Carnal mindset.

Here are just, I mean, this is obviously, we're talking about, once again, big concepts here. We'll break this down in the Bible study. The carnal mindset. Over here, the carnal mindset has a lot of negative emotions and motivations. Now, all of us have negative emotions when bad things happen to us. That's not what I'm talking about.

You can't help but have a negative emotion when you get fired, right?

Negative emotions are all part of life. But the carnal mindset is predominantly negative, but what's really important is the motivations are predominantly negative. They're predominantly, have selfish thoughts, and their actions are based in immediate gratification. What I want and what I want now is a viewpoint of life. The source of knowledge and authority, they deny God as the ultimate authority. They will draw the line. Okay, I believe God wants this in my life, but God doesn't want that in my life. The reasoning comes down to God can't make these decisions.

I'm trying to think of something.

Thirty years ago, someone said this to me, so this is a long time ago, but the person said, I know God wants me to be happy, and I can't be happy married to my husband because I want to go out and have a career, and he wants to have children, and I don't want to have children, so God wants me to divorce my husband. It was a very simple process. And you can say, well, the scripture says this. No, no, no, no, no. I don't care what the scripture says. I know what God wants. Now, what you say, the Bible has no authority over me. God basically comes down to whatever I want God to be. So, the carnal mindset, really, even though they may believe in God, they deny his authority in their lives. Their value system is unable to discern good from evil, truth from error, wisdom from foolishness. So, they have a hard time knowing the difference between good and evil.

They have a very hard time. I read something the other day. It was very interesting. It was a man talking to, he was giving a lecture at a college, and he was talking about there has to be absolutes. And the student said, there are no absolutes. It's ridiculous. And he said, okay, let me just say this. A person takes a little baby. They don't even know. I just made up something ridiculous. Just takes a little baby and brutally murders the baby. Is that absolutely wrong? And he said, the student said, I don't know.

Of course, the moment you say there are no absolutes, you just stated an absolute. So anyway, you got a problem.

They can't discern good from evil. They can't discern truth from error. And they can't discern wisdom from foolishness. So, they tend to make really bad decisions all the time.

Sometimes you'll see someone that has a lot of wisdom that may have a carnal mindset. It's just a talent they have. But this is just the general viewpoint of the carnal mindset. Now, let me say this. Even the carnal mindset doesn't mean they're always evil, does it?

They understood some good. They understand some truth. So, I'm not saying, okay, everybody that doesn't know God is totally completely evil. They're not. But they really can't discern this in great detail. And then their relationships. And this is real important. Because the carnal mindset, their relationships are basically selfish. What is in it for me?

What do I get out of this relationship?

This is the way human beings are basically, naturally.

This is who we are, to one degree or another. Like I said, everybody's on this continuum. Every once in a while, you'll find somebody that's 100% carnal. And they're so evil, nobody wants to be around them. Okay? You get this 100% carnal mindset, and you've got a really bad person. You've got a criminal. You've got Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

So, most people are somewhere on this continuum, but they're not deeply into the spiritual mindset. A lot of times when people say, I'm spiritual, not religious, what they mean is I'm emotional. I have emotions.

And that's not what spiritual mindset means. Let's go to Romans chapter 8 now.

Romans chapter 8 verse 7.

Let's start...

Let's start in verse 5 here.

That's it. Only so far. In many ways, the carnal mind is a Christian agnostic. I believe in God, but I don't believe he has authority over my life. I don't believe in his commandments.

It's enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God nor a deed can be. Now remember, this is the New Testament. This isn't the Old Testament. Paul here is saying, the carnal mind is the enemy of God and doesn't want to obey his laws. They find them oppressive.

So those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit. Now the spirit here is God's spirit. To be told to grow into a spiritual mindset takes help from God. You and I can't do this on our own. You and I can't develop a spiritual mindset completely on our own. We can have little bits and pieces of it on our own. Just like you find some really good people. I've met some people that are really good people in many ways and don't even believe in God.

So we know that they don't have the spiritual mindset and yet they're not totally carnal either.

He wants us to move away from the carnal mindset totally into the spiritual mindset. That takes his spirit to help us do it. He says, But you are not in the flesh, verse 9, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors. In other words, this is our mindset. This is what we are committed to do. We are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if we live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as us are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Now we start to see not only the mindset but the vision of God. You are my children. This is what God wants. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. The spirit of bondage. That's what we're going to talk about in the Bible study. You and I still live in a carnal mindset of bondage and it's holding us back. Again to fear. But you receive the spirit of adoption by who we cry out, Abba Father. He goes on and talks about how because of this we are the children of God.

This is his vision. This is his purpose. This is his plan for your life. So what then is the spiritual mindset? Okay, so let's look at this very general concept of the spiritual mindset that he's talking about here. Paul says it's a carnal mindset, spiritual mindset. So he's very clear what he's saying. There are more positive emotions and the reason we have more positive emotions is because we see God.

We see what God is doing that takes us out of the hopelessness that we all experience at times because of being human.

Our thoughts are based in biblical teachings and we're really going to talk about this this afternoon. Why do I think the way I think and how does the Bible give us a book? Why? Why did God give us a book?

Because the book is supposed to become part of our mind. Our actions are based on desire to do good and to love others.

So this now begins to show the spiritual mindset.

The source of knowledge and authority submits to God as ultimate authority.

There are things in my life that I would like differently, but I believe God knows best so you submit to it. Right?

God says this is wrong and you have to accept, okay, it's wrong because he says it's wrong and he's the only one who knows. But that, once again, is a submission to God is great and God is awesome and God is brilliant and I'm not. God knows everything and I don't. God knows what good is and I get little bits and pieces of it. Only he knows what works and what doesn't work.

In our value systems, then, we are to discern good from evil. The more spiritually minded we are, the easier this becomes.

None of us are spiritually 100% spiritually minded yet. So we still struggle with this. We are able to discern truth from error and wisdom from foolishness. We will begin to make more and more wise decisions in our lives. This takes time. The development of a spiritual mindset doesn't happen overnight.

This is why in the spiritual life time, sometimes you can say, Why is this all the farther I am along? Well, because God's not done yet. Sometimes we get hung up with, Should I not be more perfect? Well, God's not done yet. We're in the process of having God do this in our lives. Then our relationships are based on loving and serving others.

This doesn't mean we don't bring needs into a relationship. It's not selfish to need to be loved. It's not selfish to be loved. It's not selfish to need friends. It's not selfish to desire to have a husband or wife that understands you, that cares you. This is all part of the way we're designed. We all have needs. We all bring into any relationship.

We all need each other to pray for each other. That's why we have prayer requests. That's not what this means. If we have a totally unselfish relationship, that means I do nothing but give.

What's interesting, even God who doesn't need us says what? Here's what I want from you more than anything. What? The loving with all your heart and soul in your mind. He wants to relate. And to relate means we have to love Him back.

Our needs and relationships isn't what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is a mindset that in our relationships, we are constantly saying, how do I love and care for others?

I use this example all the time because it's just the perfect example.

That baby cries at three o'clock in the morning, and that mother does not want to get out of bed and go nurse that baby. She's not saying when she wakes up and feels horrible, oh, I just love that little child.

They're so cute. What she's saying is, I feel miserable. I don't want to get out of bed. Now, that doesn't mean she's a bad person, does it?

It means she's human being. But she gets out of bed anyways, doesn't she? And she goes take care of the baby anyways.

That's love. Because love is a choice. It's a decision you make.

That example alone shows us just because sometimes we feel a certain way doesn't make us evil. It's what we do with this. Now, feelings can be evil, by the way. Hatred, envy, those are all evil. But the normal human reactions we have at times aren't evil. They're just being human. The question is, what is your mindset? Why do you do what you do?

Why do you get up and do it anyways?

Because this is what's best for the other person. This is very much part of a spiritual mindset.

You know, let's go back to Romans 8 here. Let's go to verse 28.

Because we're going to go back to this one later.

Because this becomes part of a spiritual mindset. This has to be lodged into our minds.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, and to those who are called according to His purpose.

God's plan is, it all works out for your good. But at the moment, it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't seem that way. Just like when your child, when you say no, you can't have that cookie, and they throw a little temper tantrum, because you're the meanest person that's ever lived, and holding them back from true happiness in life, and they know they're going to be miserable for the rest of their existence.

You know, they're three years old, and they're sure for the next 80 years, they're going to be just depressed because they don't get that cookie. Of course, they don't think that through. They're in this second, this moment.

And you say, no, you're not going to have it.

You've already had enough sugar, and you're going to get sick. And I, as the adult, know what's best for you, and no, you're not going to have the cookie. And you know that's us and God. No, you can't have the cookie. And we believe God is being really mean to us. They say, I don't want you to be sick spiritually. I've got a better spiritual life for you here. So, no, you can't have the cookie.

The spiritual cookie, not a literal cookie.

Sometimes it's a literal physical cookie. When you've had 37 of them, it's enough.

I want you to think about this statement. God has a vision, and our mindset, if it's like this, even in the depths of the hardest times, we'll believe God is going to work this out. And sometimes, in spite of ourselves, sometimes we make such... we commit such terrible sins, we think, God could never work my life out, or such bad things could happen to us. We think God could never work my life out. Let's go back to Joseph. He lost his entire young adulthood. He lost it.

He was sold as a slave, dragged across the Sinai by a bunch of, you know, inshable lights, who probably didn't treat him very well, became a slave in a household, falsely accused of a crime, ended up in jail for years and years and years. He lost everything. He wasn't eating, you know, tender lamb and the tent of his dad, of his father. He was eating bowls of gruel, whatever Egyptian gruel was. It probably wasn't very good.

This is what his life had become. Sleeping on hard, stupid, what his life had become. Sleeping on hard, stone beds. Let me tell you, I can guarantee you, Egyptian prisons weren't like our prisons today.

This is what his life had become.

And then, through God's plan, he ends up this incredibly wealthy man and the second most powerful man in the greatest empire in the world. I hate to tell you this, just to let you know, I don't think that's God's vision for any of us.

None of us are going to become the second most powerful person in the world and incredibly wealthy. It would destroy us. And remember what he had to go through to get there, and this is what's important.

He had to go, he had to, if you give up mother, fathers, brothers, families, houses, lands, you give that up for me, I'll give it back to you. I don't want to have to go through what Joseph went through, but it's how God prepared him for what he was going to do with him. It wasn't just because he was going to reward him. He was going to do something with him. Just like God's going to do something in your life. I don't know what it is. People come up all the time and say, what is it God's going to do in my life? My answer is, I don't know.

It's taking me a long time to figure out what God's going to do in my life.

I'm pretty comfortable with it. It's pretty simple.

Pretty simple. Take care of my family.

Preach the gospel. Take care of my churches. It's that simple.

It's great to have a simple life.

That's all I'm supposed to be. And I'm real happy with that.

That's what I'm supposed to be. You have to... God at some point helps you figure out what you're supposed to be. And you do that. You become that. Joseph now has the perfect opportunity. His brothers appear before him.

Can you imagine? You know, it's years later. After all you went through, they come before you. They have no idea who you are. You're not that young kid they sold into slavery. You're a grown man. You're not only a grown man. You're dressed like an Egyptian, surrounded by all these servants and stuff. And those servants and slaves wearing gold, they have no idea who you are.

Genesis 45. Now what you remember, we just read, because this becomes the foundation of the spiritual mindset.

Genesis 45.

Verse 1.

So his brothers are before him. That Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him. And he cried out, Make everyone go out from me. So he sends away all the Egyptians. All the servants, all the slaves, all the scribes that would have been there to write down. He was such an important man. There would have been people there to write down everything he said.

All the soldiers that were there as his bodyguards. He sends everybody out.

So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. He cried so loud that people could hear it in the other rooms.

Joseph is just weeping. Just emotions just pouring out of him. Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Does my father still live? I find that as fascinating as the first question.

He knew God had a plan for his life.

Now think about it.

God told him, okay, look, everything you've been through is because you're going to become this important man because there's going to be a famine throughout the world. And you're going to save the world.

You're going to save up food here to save the world. That's a pretty big plan.

In all that, he got so locked into the seven years of preparing the world for what God had told him to do, he never sent anyone back to Canaan to find out if his dad was alive.

He did what he was supposed to do.

Remember, if you give up these things, I give you these things.

There's a giving up in this. There's a giving up of things in this.

It's part of God's plan to prepare us for what he wants us to do. What he wants us to be, which is a whole lot more important than what he wants us to do. What he wants us to be.

Joseph, the first thing he asks is, my father's still alive. Remember, he was very, his father loved him more than any of the other sons.

But he's doing the work of God, what he'd been prepared to do, all those years as a slave, all those years in the prison.

But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. That has to be one of the greatest understatements in the Bible.

They were scared to death. He's going to kill us. It is going to be a slow, long death. Okay?

They were dismayed, because this has to be Joseph.

And Joseph said to his brothers, please come near to me. So they came near. Then he said, I am Joseph, your brother, who you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore, now listen what he tells him, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves. I would have been saying, you bunch of...

probably not a lot of nice things.

Stone-headed, wrong-headed buffoons.

You know what you did to me?

You know what it was like to be 26 and in jail for something you didn't do?

Do you know what gruel tastes like? No. Okay. You're all going to eat it for about eight years, okay?

That's not what he does. He says, don't be grieved and don't even be angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me before you to preserve life.

He goes on and explains, God knew there was going to be this great famine. He sent me here to save the world. So don't be angry. God had a plan.

What a mindset. Because if he was simply reacting to the things that happened to him, he would have never said that.

His vision of what God wanted for him was so great and his mindset was so like this. Then here we have a man that's his thoughts or his emotions are positive. He's just decided to do good. I've got to save all these people. His knowledge and his authority comes from God. Look at his value system.

He doesn't do evil here. He doesn't do error. He knows what God wants. He's very wise. In fact, he's in the position he's in because of his wisdom. And look at his relationships. He says to his brothers, we're going to go get dad. We're going to get a movie here and you're going to get taken care of. I'm going to take care of him. Yeah, the runt. I'm not a runt anymore, by the way.

They ain't figured that much out.

What a remarkable mindset.

Think of what Paul said. That we believe God will work out all things for our good for those who love him.

That have a spiritual mindset that are becoming like our Father, like Jesus Christ.

He paid a pretty big price for that, didn't he? You and I will pay a price for the kingdom. You and I will pay a price in this life. And God will give us blessings in this life. He will work it out for good.

And you and I have to believe that. And that means that if we're going to have this kind of mindset, we have to learn to think like this kind of mindset.

He's, oh good, we're going to have some kind of self-help. No, we're not. What we're going to do in the Bible study is we're going to go through what the Bible says about how to develop this mindset. Yes, it takes God's Spirit, but there's also a practical side to it. So I could just say, so receive God's Spirit and develop this mindset. And you and I all know it's not that easy, is it?

God's Spirit is in us, but there's something practical we have to do also. And that's what we'll cover in the Bible study.

So we have a chance to get something to eat, and then we'll come back, and we'll do the second half.